1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital business card, and more particularly, to a digital business card with a magnetic stripe for recording user data.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The utilization of conventional printed business cards is fairly extensive for introducing an individual or a company to others. The printed business card generally records fundamental information such as the name, title, address, or telephone number of the individual or the company. For convenience, the conventional printed business card has a standard size of 9 cmxc3x975.5 cm. Since the size of the printed business card is fixed, the amount of information that can be recorded is restricted. Therefore, except for the fundamental information described above, other useful information such as personal publications, academic backgrounds, professional backgrounds, or company catalogs cannot be recorded on the limited sheet of paper.
Nevertheless, with the prevalence of computers, all kinds of data can be stored as computer files in various forms such as document files, data structures, diagrams, or multimedia files. Thus, a portable recording media used in a computer system may be capable of replacing the conventional printed business card for recording the personal data. Typically, the portable recording media can be a magneto-optical (MO) storage disk or a floppy disk. The MO disk uses basic principles of writing magnetically with thermal assistance and reads data optically using a laser. Unfortunately, the MO disk is not popular enough to be used everywhere, and the floppy disk has a disadvantage of small capacity. Neither is suitable to substitute for the conventional printed business card.
Recently, a CD-ROM drive has become a basic peripheral device for a computer. A compact disc can store a huge amount of data and has advantages of low price and popularity. However, a person cannot conveniently carry the present compact disc, and an improvement is thus needed. Additionally, all data stored in the prior art compact disc is entirely presented to one who browses the compact disc. Even when the owner of the compact disc does not wish to present the data in the compact disc to a specific person, the data still cannot be hidden. Consequently, the data stored in the compact disc is likely to be leaked out or be stolen by others.
It is therefore a primary objective of the claimed invention to provide a digital business card to solve the above-mentioned problems.
According to the claimed invention, the claimed invention provides a digital business card comprising a rectangular substrate and a magnetic stripe. The substrate has a printing surface disposed on a surface of the substrate for printing visual data, and a photo-recording region disposed on the rear of the substrate for storing digital data. The magnetic stripe is disposed on the surface of the substrate adjacent to a short side of the substrate for recording magnetic recording data and storing a specific encoded password.
It is an advantage of the claimed invention that the digital business card according to the claimed invention effectively controls reading of the data in the digital business card through the combination of a magnetic stripe and the digital business card so as to prevent the data from being stolen.
It is a further advantage of the claimed invention that the digital business card according to the claimed invention has the same size as a conventional printed business card, so that the digital business card is carried handily and has high capacity of storing data.
These and other objectives and advantages of the claimed invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.